well. technology innovation all the developments around russia we've got this huge earth covered. coming up at this hour on our t.v. drumming up fear through deception c.n.n. misses the mark again when it comes to its coverage of iran choosing to cut president oxygen to jot off abruptly while airing the entirety of prime minister netanyahu speech last journalist amber lyon to great cnn's coverage in the middle east. and it wasn't until the korean war that americans first learned about the effects of p.t.s.d. on soldiers and civilians in the age of the drone the physical and psychological impacts that they have on civilians is just starting to become clear we'll take a look at the human toll in just a bit. plus president obama promised he'd crack down on the banks responsible for

the mortgage backed securities fraud two years later justice may finally be served but it might not be the change you were looking for the timing of it all could not be more convenient i'll tell you more. it's tuesday october second five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching our t.v. well perhaps two of the most talked about speeches from the u.n. g.a. are from the leaders of two duelling nations that's israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad of course now and you know yahoo excuse me how that unforgettable cartoon bomb with a clear red line drop his speech was aired in full on multiple mainstream networks your own speech however was cut short and that means viewers didn't get to see this . don't ya got the woman is

a new. friend so you're an older. woman. now. you're going to. perfection i. want to go an older which is. less than six you let it fall and i build only walks around your own little girl that's funny though ross and coming. home just all. i thought of is the so you can get from. one of those. now missions like that make all the difference in how the iranian leader is part trade i mean the difference between a warmonger and someone opposed to war so what else isn't being reported and what

are the ramifications of this selective reporting to discuss amber lyon three time emmy award winning journalist photographer and filmmaker joins us now amber welcome so very much for having me on first want to ask you what you make of this the difference in the coverage of the two leaders a woman in god speech just less interesting or is there something else at play well i we're really worried here that the united states public is being led into another potential conflict with iran the similar way that we were led into the iraq and afghanistan wars because you're starting to see the mainstream media really overhyped the situation in iran and omit important facts like what you just showed it liz where it was saying that there are options for peace but if you go back and you look at the way that c.n.n. and other mainstream outlets covered that they nord that part of of the speech and and if you look at all the. up again to being fed to the american public right now

in terms of iran we have movies here coming out argo we've got the mainstream media over saturation of coverage of the iran situation and you know based on everything that's happening here in the u.s. with the mortgage crisis the economy the fact that most americans are having problems just getting by day to day the fact that the mainstream media is over covering iran only says one thing to me and that's that the american public is being propagated into another war and why do you think that this is happening well i think that it's a use of propaganda and this is something that that goes back to the terms of weapons of mass destruction the american public was fed that phrase over and over and over leading into the iraq war and now we're starting to see it as far as nuclear weapons and iran goes in the us liz and and i just fear that the public is continuing to be fed propaganda that unassuming americans don't realize

they're being fed to to lead us into another potential conflict now the job of the media is supposed to be you know this fourth estate and to you know show you know all possible angles and basically just to report the truth what do you think it is i know that you work for c.n.n. why would it be otherwise why would they be presenting war propaganda as you call it. well i really can't speculate as to exactly why this is going on but i can tell you that when i was working for c.n.n. we did have a documentary that we aired on the buffering situation and that's where we have our naval base which is right across from iran so we strategically want to keep that naval base and it was very difficult to get stories on about buffering i even came out a couple weeks ago talking about the censorship of that documentary on c.n.n. international and above all is that i feel that the american public is not

being fed the true story about what's going on in this region and it's very dangerous because when the public is constantly fed messages that are potentially leading us into a war that may not be necessary it's not fair to the american people and it's not fair to journalism because the truth isn't being told here what's being told here is the way that these networks want to spin the truth and that's leading us into another potential conflict with iran and i've been trying to tell my followers on my facebook page and on twitter to really open your eyes because once you notice and start to you take the blindfold off you start to see all of this. propaganda floating through the american mainstream media and and it's symbolic of exactly what was going on before the wars in iraq and afghanistan now we do have a clip of this documentary that you filmed want to take

a look at and then we'll talk more about the documentary and the way c.n.n. reacted to it. the protesters seem to have disappeared from bob greene's capital thanks to the intense military crackdown. we ventured into another side of. a side the government didn't want the world to see to find out where they've gone we drove to shia villages passing military checkpoints as we left the capital. we're going in with these protesters for a little bit. this is what the protest looks like today young boys who been came here again. now the documentary that we just saw. and never aired and never aired on c.n.n.

international why not. well i still haven't been given an exact reason as to why why it didn't air i went and visited with the president of c.n.n. international tony maddox twice on behalf of my dumbfounded crew and we were never given an answer and so i started investigating the situation liz after several employees who bennett the network for years approached me and said you need to look into this there's something going on it's very strange they're not airing your documentary and after some investigation we found out that c.n.n. international is actually making money from the buffering regime they are a customer of buffering bahrain is paying c.n.n. international to create content that shows bahrain in a favorable light and then they are also not only to create that content list to then air that content on c.n.n. international and one of the shows it was called i list buffering it was back in

two thousand and ten it was sponsored by crane and richard quest was live from the country for a week talking about the formula one race then how progressive bufferin work was and how the crown prince was a reformer well we saw in february two thousand and eleven that under the crown prince's rule the military troops shot and killed unarmed protesters and broad daylight and this is very dangerous because what c.n.n. is doing and they're not only taking money from just rain they've also produced similar content for georgia kazakhstan and other nations as well lebanon and what makes this dangerous is they're not disclosing to the viewers that these sponsored programs are actually being sponsored or if they are disclosing it it's a very small gray lettering at the bottom of the article and that's dangerous not only to our foreign policy but once again and in. making the american public and

the public in general that's. watching this network think that there are rosy situations happening in these countries when that's not the case as we've seen with buffering and and it's defrauding viewers and it's defrauding their own journalists i was not told as a journalist working at the network that this was going on it wasn't clearly disclosed to me that at the same time i was investigating the buffering regime buffering was a paying customer at c.n.n. and you did this all you found this out all through your own research what did c.n.n. tell you in terms of that when you were like hey why aren't you playing my documentary and that i you know why danger and to bring this story and what what did they tell you as to you know why they weren't playing it well that's what made me more suspicious is because they never gave us an answer they never told us why they weren't weren't playing it even though i asked the head of c.n.n. or an international twice about it and even bosses above me told me they didn't

have answers for me and i'd have to go searching for those answers so so that pretty much as an investigative reporter tells me that something's going on and so on behalf of my crew who you know we got to get to the bottom of things we had fixers and drivers and brain who are currently now have been laid off because they helped us film the documentary some who are continually still harassed doctors without borders employee who actually drove us into these villages to show us doctors who'd been beaten by security forces he risked his safety several months after our documentary his home was burnt down and part activists say because he helped c.n.n. with that documentary and these sources these people on the ground did not know that at the same time c.n.n. was taking money from this regime to make rosie content that would negate their content and they risked their lives and i feel like c.n.n.

owes them an apology. as well as an apology to viewers and its its own journalists for for defrauding them with this information while amber really really eye opening and really appreciate you coming on the show and and telling us all about this that was amber lyon three time emmy award winning journalist photographer and filmmaker thanks for having me on appreciate it. let's take a look now at a new study on drone strikes that raises many questions about the obama administration's drone campaign the report was released this week by the center for civilians and conflict at columbia university a shed light on how the secrecy surrounding the drone strikes leaves the public in the dark around the room about the real consequences of drone warfare it suggests that while drone deaths are significantly understated not even the u.s. government knows the true death toll and beyond the figures the report takes a comprehensive look at the drone campaigns impact on civilians in pakistan yemen and somalia to talk more about the findings and what it all means one of the

authors of the study noreen shah associate director of the counterterrorism and human rights project at columbia law joined me earlier. our main finding is that there's way too much that we don't know about drone strikes the u.s. government has assured in a program of drone strikes that started under president george w. bush it's vastly accelerated under president obama and it's in yemen it's in somalia it's in pakistan and we're even hearing reports that it's in mali in the philippines all over the world yet we don't know really who's involved in these drone strikes what the standards are and what the processes are now do you think that government officials and policy makers underestimate or fail to recognize some of the consequences of this drone campaign that's absolutely right we're talking not just about the number of civilians killed or the number of militants killed but the toll on these communities in parts of pakistan somalia and yemen we're talking about regions where there's already a problem of war but this is really adding to the problem as we have civilians who are really caught in the crossfire between milligan militant groups on the one hand

and u.s. drone strikes on the other they're afraid of being being targeted merely because they're associating with individuals because they're outside they don't know what will let them be targeted and that's creating for them environment of hysteria and psychological tournament when they just don't know when a drone will strike all right and going along with that can you talk more about that because i know that this report takes a really close look at that not just at the the death tolls of these strikes but you know and that's oftentimes what we hear reported what the media does focus on but beyond that how these drone strikes impact civilians on the ground. well the impact is a great one but it's also one that's gone unexplored even by journalists in organizations like ourselves because we're talking about regions that are really restricted that aside what we're hearing and what our report references is the fact that there are civilians on the ground who are afraid to send their kids to school they're afraid to seek medical attention because of these ongoing drone strikes sometimes in pockets on very frequent drone strikes over

a period of two or three weeks people are afraid even to go out to associate with each other because they just don't know what will happen we've heard stories about families being torn apart and really having to struggle for a livelihood because a breadwinner is killed and. what are the long term effects of this what. can be added is this fueling anti-american sentiment which would then be counterproductive in terms of our full foreign policy interests you know it's really it's so hard to tell because we're talking about places in the world where there's already some amount of anti-american sentiment but what we don't do know is that whenever the u.s. is going into a country and exerting its force they're going to polarize public debate in those countries so the us and tell us sentiment is not that's the beginning of the iceberg the tip of the iceberg really because we're also talking about governments in those countries that are seen as cooperating with the united states they might lose their legitimacy in their own publics views that can have a destabilizing effect on democracies and governments all across the world where

we're conducting drone strikes and i want to talk about why people advocate drone proponents of drones and the u.s. government they say and they they tell this procedure that that is enabled by a drone them and it's presumed that such precision is able to pinpoint its targets and limit civilian deaths does this report saying otherwise. well the problem is that we're talking about a technology that's far beyond the practice so we do have great technology drone technology is incredibly events but in practice if we're using it secretly and with few boots on the ground we're not really realizing its advantages in terms of really being able to know who we're killing in fact we don't know who we're killing if we don't have ground troops on the ground to say pinpoint the intelligence and to say this is what's happened after the fact we went in investigated and looked at this is who we killed so when you use your own technology without having boots on the ground when you use it secretly those advantages that we've heard the obama administration reference aren't necessarily realized they are talking about this covert drone campaign that's essentially what it isn't but when it comes to

civilian protections how does the use of drones compare to full scale military offer operations you know military operations that are more. commonly known and commonly use that is ad and where we dealt with that as a nation before well there's a huge imbalance between the way of victim of a drone strike a mistaken victim would be treated in afghanistan compared to pakistan and afghanistan they might get some recognition from the u.s. military or a person from the u.s. military might come and visit their family home and apologize for what has happened they might be provided some compensation it might not be enough it can never be enough when a fairly members killed but in pockets on there's no one to go to when you think that you've been unjustly injured or when your family member has been killed there's no visible sign of what's going on for these people except for the destruction of their home with the killing of a loved one in that lack of visibility that secrecy can really damage u.s. credibility that we've so hard work worked on so much in afghanistan now what

what kind of precedent do you think that this is setting this drone campaign i mean in terms of handling civilian protections and you know the future use of drones a is this going to lead to drone warfare becoming the norm. i do think that it's leading to your own war pro becoming the norm and unfortunately united states is taking the lead in using the sec knology without taking the lead in setting its limits other countries are rapidly acquiring drone technology many already have it we know they'll be using it in future conflicts and though when we have united states government want to say you can't use your own technology in that way we won't have a leg to stand on the u.s. government will be called out as hypocrites because the united states never articulated those standards in those limits on its own practice and that was. director of the counterterrorism and human rights project at columbia law school. but president obama has promised time and time again to crack down on the wrong doings of wall street and the state of the union address he vowed that

a presidential excuse me residential mortgage backed securities taskforce would investigate the people who created and sold worthless bargains this settlement also protects our ability to further investigate the practices that caused this mess and this is important the mortgage fraud task force i announced in my state of the union address retains its full authority to aggressively investigate the packaging and selling of risky mortgages that led to this crisis well it's this kind of reckless behavior that contributed to the financial collapse in two thousand and eight and here we are nine months later and co-chair of the group and new york attorney general eric schneiderman has filed charges against bear stearns a now defunct company bought out by j.p. morgan now this is a civil case which means no one will be serving jail time so is this really the kind of justice president obama promised or is it seizing election season theatrically to talk more about this david dein blogger for firedoglake has been

following the story very closely and is here to talk more about it welcome david so first i want to ask you what are the charges against bear stearns you know a company that is now part of j.p. morgan chase. right this is stearns was purchased by j.p. morgan chase in. mid two thousand and eight and this concerns mortgage backed securities deals that they had created and sold to investors and they used a lot of deceptive practices misrepresentations in terms of what they said they were going to do in terms of insuring the quality of the loans. and what they actually did which was speed the loans through the pipeline and allow defective loans that did not meet the underwriting standards into the securities deals in this cost the investors massive amounts of money i believe the number of losses on

the deal specifically in this lawsuit total about twenty two point five billion dollars now this lawsuit if you take a look at it named the at the company bear stearns the now defunct company why is that does that make sense should an individual or or individuals be named or that the company commit the fraud. names no individuals because it's a civil suit i mean you may get some in institutional accountability out of this but you're not going to get any individual accountability i mean there were actual people that did the these deals and hid this information from investors but you wouldn't know it from reading the lawsuit because it simply does not contemplate criminal activities of course the statute of limitations. under the martin act which is the new york state law in which this case is being brought is

longer for civil cases then this for criminal cases and if you did a criminal case under the martin act you probably wouldn't even be able to get at most of the deals the mortgage. looks likely we lost david dion we're going to move on now hopefully we can bring him back we turn now to a new york federal court judge who ruled yesterday that a huge slew of the new york police department's mass arrests were unconstitutional for actions during the wall street occupy wall street protest you might ask try eight years earlier the unlawful arrest took place at the republican national convention in two thousand and four. but the n.y.p.d. is tactics during the r. and c. resulted in one thousand and eight hundred arrests the most ever during a political convention in new york city attorneys defended police action under what

they called group probable cause that's if one individual engages in illegal activity there is probable cause that the rest of the group is also up to no good u.s. district judge richard sullivan didn't buy it though he said that two hundred twenty six of the arrests were unconstitutional because quote the fourth amendment does not recognize guilt by association this ruling could result in a huge monetary payout the new york civil liberties union had brought the lawsuit against the city the city won another part of the lawsuit though judge sullivan determined that new york's no summons policy which called for arresting people for minor crimes and said of handing out tickets was constitutional and more and did judge sullivan also found no wish to with police fingerprinting people arrested under this no policy no summons policy another group of mass arrests that occurred at union square during the r. and c. is still heading for trial we'll keep you updated hopefully in less than eight

years. well as we near election day we thought it would be good to take a look at one of the serious promises president obama made both in his campaign and in recent years a promise to crack down on big banks who play by their own rules. and there something very interesting that just came out a report in the new york times that shows lawyers who represent corporate whistleblowers have been big winners under president obama and are doing everything in their power to keep him in the white house archies christine for that breaks it all down corporate greed on wall street it's an issue that's been center stage ever since the financial meltdown of two thousand and eight now voices on both the right and the last have tried to find ways to deal with the fallout the bottom line here is that there have been some measures taken to try to deal with corporate fraud and abuse one strategy has been to try to lure insiders or whistleblowers to come forward and report what they've seen and even if they've been part of that illegal

activity to reward them how much of this goes back to dodd frank a piece of legislation which addresses a number of issues one of them gives incentives to whistleblowers to report those policies which inevitably do harm to customers and taxpayers alike he win if they do rake in a whole lot of money for those at the top so as you can imagine that most of wall street is not in favor of this here's what governor romney thinks about these stricter penalties and about dodd frank overall. when you increase the number of regulations that are a three times that of his predecessor with a bill like dodd frank that makes it harder for small banks to grow and thrive and make loans you don't add jobs president obama on the other hand it wants to stay the course cracking down on fraud and holding those big banks accountable. when we learn that a major bank has serious problems we will hold accountable those responsible force

the necessary adjustments for by the support to clean up their balance sheets and assure the continuity of the strong buyable institution that can serve our people and our economy all right this is where things get interesting the lawyers representing some of those corporate whistleblowers are supporting the president they've already raised about three million dollars for him according to this new york times report since president obama has been in office the government has paid out about one point six million dollars to corporate whistleblowers in many cases the law firms are the big winners taking a cut of about forty percent of the proceeds and i want to be clear this is by no means a rant on corporate whistleblowers it just leads to a question very few people seem to be asking what about the other whistleblowers the ones the government has taken issue with here are just a few examples thomas drake a former executive with the national security agency who made public a secret program in which the n.s.a. was illegally spying on its citizens was charged by the government under the

espionage act so too was john kiriakou who disclosed information that waterboarding was being used as an interrogation technique and of course there's bradley manning the accused wiki leaker who shared classified documents as well as that collateral murder video private manning of course a u.s. citizen and a military veteran who spoke up because he saw what he believed was wrongdoing and he reported it he's now been in prison nearly nine hundred days and much of that was in solitary confinement it's all well and good that a small group of lawyers are making a killing on those who report wrongdoing on wall street but what about those who report when their government is breaking the rules where is the bill and for that matter where are the backers for them just one important issue to look at as election day looms. in washington christine r t. well coming up next is breaking the set with abby martin that's coming up in thirty

minutes let's check in with abby martin to see what's on today's agenda abbi what's going on lou is good it's good shows going well today we have a lot in store we have amber lyon where you just interviewed we're going to go to c.n.n. censorship investigative journalism the state of journalism and how just the road it is in this country and also to talk about obama the drone king that's what i've coined my little nickname for him report is get out from pakistan that says drone warfare is actually counter fecht it and causes more terrorism against this country who wouldn't believe it well stay tuned for breaking the set and we're going to smash that set. like watching it. that it's coming up next in thirty minutes that isn't a do it for now or the news from are the stars we covered check out our you tube channel you tube dot com slash r t america or check out our website that's our team dot com slash usa and you can also follow me on twitter at liz wall we'll be right

back here at eight pm see that. here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dollar. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot about my country you sir are a fool you know what kind of mind a terrorist cells in your neighborhood all want to keep us safe to feature is an ok on wimpole the christian public. can see your beliefs about it because. you know the corporate media distracts us from what you and i should care about because they're a profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm not me martin and we're going to break this that. please.